I have an awkwardly cute sofa, but unfortunately it's almost always covered in piles of clothes (clean and once-worn) that spill down onto the floor (the dirty ones), so you can't really tell it's there. Well, I've decided this needs to end! I decided this many years ago really, but I've finally come up with a solution: a hamper (aren't I a genius?).

I roughly followed this tutorial from ikat bag, changing the dimensions to get a taller hamper. I like that it can fold up to be carried to the washing machine or stored somewhere. I thought it would make a good beginner project for me, since I want to develop my woodworking skillz. I built the frame in about 1.5 hours on the floor of the lounge in my moms ballet school, so of course it's not perfect (it doesn't stand perfectly even) - but I mean, it's a hamper. And it feels so good to make something so useful!

I used gold-toned hardware and a stain for the wood (Canadian Hemlock the guy at the store informed me! :)) to make the hamper fit in with the rest of my furniture. I loooved using the wood stain! It's so much fun! It's like you're massaging the color into the wood, and it makes it look so much more like "furniture" than "something I built with some wood and a couple of screws on the floor of a ballet school". I want to use wood stain on everything now! My wooden clothes hangers, wine crates, all the cheap looking, light colored wood furniture that seems to be everywhere... (so dramatic!). No but seriously, I feel like it gives a lot of character to whatever you make out of inexpensive wood, because compared to painting it you can still see the "texture" of the wood. I chose a dark, reddish stain ("Palisander", according to wikipedia that's rosewood in English).

For the hamper bag I used a pillow cover I got at a thrift store years ago, it was the perfect size (60cm wide) to make a 30x30cm square bag (I sewed 30 cm seams down two "triangles" at the base of the pillow), and the color fits in with the color scheme for my room :) All I need to do now is attach snaps to the flaps of the laundry bag (to make it removable), I didn't have any gold-toned snaps (poppers/pushers whatever you call them :)) on hand. I might make a more exciting bag once I move in, depending on how "busy" the room feels (a fun print? Ikat?).

I'd really recommend this project! It was inexpensive (I payed a little more for the gold-toned hardware) and not too hard. The hardest part was drilling the holes into the dowels, because they're so thin and you have to try to drill straight into it!

Can't wait to make more stuff for the new apartment!